LONDON—With so many almosts and near misses, these have been the Crying Games for some Canadian Olympians. Several of our top amateur athletes have made teary-eyed exits to stellar careers.

But don’t seek out Tonya Verbeek if you’re looking for heartbreak or regret.

Verbeek, who will turn 35 next week, ended a brilliant Olympic career with a silver medal in the women’s freestyle wrestling Thursday. While it’s sometimes said you don’t win silver, you lose gold, Verbeek departed playing anything but the part of loser.

“I felt like I wrestled my match out there and was strong. I’m happy to bring home a silver for Canada in women’s wrestling, I really am,” Verbeek said after losing in two rounds to Japanese legend Saori Yoshida in the gold-medal final.

“I’m not sad at the moment. I’ll obviously have some emotions after that I’m going to deal with. I’m just trying to embrace it.”

It’s the third Olympic medal of Verbeek’s career, which is outstanding by any measure. The Thorold, Ont., resident simply had the misfortune of being great while Yoshida was brilliant. It must be the way Dale Hawerchuk or Bryan Trottier felt playing centre in the NHL at the same time as Wayne Gretzky. No matter how spectacular your game, there is always someone a notch above.

Verbeek won a silver medal at the Olympics in Athens in 2004. Like here, she lost the final to Yoshida. In 2008, she won a bronze medal, only because she went head-to-head with the Japanese wrestler in the semifinal and didn’t advance to wrestle for gold.

For Yoshida, who grew up in a wrestling family and works as a security guard in Tokyo, this was her third straight Olympic gold medal to go with nine consecutive world championships. Since 2002, the 29-year-old has lost only two matches. Verbeek has faced her nine times and lost each time.

“I think we were really ready and she stepped up,” said Verbeek’s coach Marty Calder. “It came down to a couple of takedowns and sometimes you lose to people that maybe — maybe — are better than you. You have to accept that I guess.”

Verbeek wrestled extremely well throughout the day, dispatching opponents from India, Ukraine and Colombia. As the challenge got bigger, she got better.

“I really did feel good out there. I was enjoying it. I was soaking it all up. The stadium was incredible and I have a lot of people here supporting me. I’m happy,” she said.

Then came one last head-to-head with Yoshida. Verbeek was strong again but she got taken down — Yoshida is quick as well as strong — because of one momentary lapse and she then lost the second period on a decision Calder protested. After a video review, the call on whether Yoshida actually deserved a point for taking Verbeek off the mat stood. Yoshida bounded about the ExCeL Centre venue in ecstasy, at one point flipping her coach over her shoulder to the mat and then carrying him on her shoulders.

Afterwards, neither Canadian coach nor athlete was going to lament one last loss in a career that included those three Olympic baubles as well as a silver and two bronze from world championships. While her Olympics are over, Verbeek said she will compete at the world championships Canada is hosting just outside Edmonton in the fall and she will continue to coach.

“I’m happy that I can have three Olympic medals to take home at the end of my career. I’m just happy with how things have all worked out a long the way,” she said. “It was a tough match. It’s always a tough match against her. But I felt really good going in and I felt like I gave my everything. I came out fighting right to the end. That’s how I want to be remembered.”

Calder, too, saw only the day’s silver lining.

“I got seventh place at the Olympics. I don’t feel that bad for her,” joked Calder, recalling his Games in 1996. “She’s got three medals in her collection. But at the same time, this is the one we really wanted to get. This is potentially the end of her career and there’s a lot to celebrate. What a career she’s had. What an effort she’s put in here in the last years with us.”

Verbeek will now go back to her unassuming small-town life in Thorold, a life in which she supply teaches for the Niagara District School Board and coaches wrestling at the Brock University Wrestling Club in St. Catharines.

“My community has been behind me my whole career and I really feel that,” she said. “I feel that I’m a star in their eyes and they’re really proud of me just based on all their words and support they’ve given me. I’ve liked the way my career has gone and I wouldn’t change it.”

Though it would have been nice to beat Yoshida, even just once.

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